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Once we were seated, he leaned over so only I could hear and asked, “Are you familiar with the tale of Odette and Prince Siegfried?” I arched an eyebrow at him, and he passed me a program. “Swan Lake. Just another love story gone wrong.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my face. In the three years we’d been married, I’d never heard him mention the ballet.
“My parents took me once as a teenager,” he explained. “They thought since I took ballroom dancing, I would like it.”
The lights dimmed, and Bill sat back, shifting to get comfortable. His long legs knocked against the seat in front of us multiple times before its occupant turned to raise her eyebrows. I suppressed a laugh just as the composer lifted his arms.
Before long, the stage was awhirl with white tulle, hard muscles, prettily pink slippers. And those pink slippers, which curled and arched and lengthened unnaturally, seemed perfectly untouched; everything about the ballet appeared smooth and blemish-free, from the dancers to the patrons. The graceful precision was one thing, but I was floored by the flawlessness of the performance. I wished everything in life were so clean. When the curtain fell for intermission, I clapped gleefully with the crowd.
We spilled into the lobby, excitedly reviewing what we’d just seen as we maneuvered. Bill and Andrew left to get drinks as Gretchen, Lucy and I broke away from the others, struggling to keep close through the bustling crowd. The room was brimming with people, and I hoped that Bill wouldn’t be in line the entire intermission.
“I can’t believe my mother let me quit ballet when I was seven,” Lucy lamented once we’d found a semi-open spot. “I could have been a star.”
“I don’t think it’s as easy as that,” I offered.
She shook her head. “Liv, I could have been a professional ballerina.” Gretchen and I laughed at her sincere expression. “Fine, don’t believe me,” she said with frustration. “I’m going to the restroom.”
“Oh, me too,” Gretchen chimed. “Livs?”
“I don’t really have to go,” I said. “I can wait here for the guys.”
I craned my neck above the crowd to search for the bar, where I expected Bill would loom over everyone. My gaze lingered on different people, noting how their stiff, deliberate movements countered the elegance of the dancers on stage. To me, they not only seemed like strangers, but like aliens. Or maybe I was the one who didn’t belong.
As a teenager, the abrupt divorce of my parents had left me feeling out of place. It had rattled my concepts of home and familiarity. Since then, I’d never figured out exactly where I was supposed to be. Large crowds always heightened that insecurity and left me feeling vulnerable. I had the unfortunate ability of feeling spectacularly alone in a crowd, even when surrounded by friends and family.
I had the sensation of being watched seconds before I met a man’s unfamiliar pair of eyes across the room. They were dark and intense, narrowed in my direction as if he were trying to place me. Everything slowed around me as my heartbeat whipped into a rapid flutter.
Our gaze held a moment longer than it should have. My body buzzed, and my pounding heart echoed in my ears. It wasn’t his immense, tall frame or darkly handsome face that struck me, but a draw so strong that it didn’t break, even when I blinked away.
I jumped at a hand on my arm. I’d been holding my breath for those stretched seconds, and it rushed out of me now, disjointed and erratic. I shifted for the passerby and spotted Bill winding toward me through the crowd. When I looked back, my breath caught in my throat.
He loomed closer than necessary. Something about the lean in his posture was intimate and easy, yet the space between us was physically hot, igniting fire under my skin. I had to remind myself to breathe. My cheeks heated, and I helplessly bit my rouged bottom lip as I took him in; hair blackest black, short and unruly but long enough to run my hands through. His suntanned complexion appeared natural from time spent outdoors. Strong carved-from-marble facial features were softened by long unblinking lashes. Involuntarily, I drew a sharp breath at the magnitude of his handsomeness.
A woman’s voice cut into my consciousness and he turned, giving me the opportunity to regain control. In one swift movement I ducked away, exhaling audibly. Bill and Andrew were there then, shoving a glass of wine at me as I moved to shield myself with their bodies.
“Where are the girls?”
“You like Pinot right?”
“What do you think of the show?”
I made a noise, the result of an attempt to speak as the room spun with words and images.
“I’ll take that!” Gretchen’s voice called suddenly.
“The line for the bathroom isn’t bad if you have to go,” Lucy said. I flinched when she touched my shoulder. “Liv, are you - ”
“I think I will go,” I said, backing away. I only just saw her puzzled expression as I turned to struggle through a crowd dense enough to suffocate. Or so it felt in that moment.
~
I could not remember what he looked like. Our exchange was a mere moment, but I had felt the shift. Only the interruption had restored my senses, allowing me to break away.
After, as I sat in the theater, the velvety red seats that I had not much noticed before pricked at my exposed skin, causing me to shift uncontrollably. Because each time I sat still, his heat enveloped me again. As hard as I tried, I could not remember what he looked like. I could only feel him.
I forced myself to focus on the second half. A bewitching Odette mournfully enthralled the crowd as her story unfolded. Why did it feel as though she watched me between sequences?
Back in the lobby, in the most unobvious way I knew how, I scanned the crowd for a clue or hint as to who the man might be. To both my relief and disappointment, I did not see him again and tried to forget the feeling while we dined and drank into the night.
~
The heavy door of our Lincoln Park apartment threatened to slam behind me, but at the last second, I caught the knob and eased it shut. I yawned as I hung up my coat and slid out of my pumps. Bill flipped on the television set in the next room as I sorted through the mail, tossing half of it into the trash. On the brown polyester couch his mother had given us some years ago, I found him in his boxers, languidly watching replays of the
basketball game he’d grudgingly missed.
Three glasses of red wine coursed through my veins. I stripped off my emerald dress in one sinuous motion and let it drop onto the floor. When he didn’t look up, I shimmied over and settled myself onto his lap.
“Hi,” I said in a sultry whisper. His hand righted a stray strand of hair as he glanced between the screen and me. I wet my lips and kissed him full on the mouth. I’d been humming with electricity since intermission and was impatient for human contact.
“Well, well,” he said when we broke. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s late. Take me to bed,” I pleaded with a scrunch of my nose. His eyebrow rose and his mouth popped open as if connected by an invisible string. He looked about to protest and then relaxed as he thought better of it. In an uncharacteristically graceful motion he stood, with my body secured to his, and carried me to the mattress. Fingertips tenderly caressed the outside of my thighs as he hovered over me.
“Shit,” I said, just as his face dipped. I sat up in a panic. “I forgot to pick up condoms.”
“It’s fine.”
My brows furrowed. “It is not fine. You know I’m not on birth control.”
“Come on, Liv, just this once.” He sighed, annoyed, even though we’d never done it without one.
“Nope.” A friend of mine in high school had tried birth control and ended up ten pounds heavier and horribly moody. The day she slapped another student, I swore off of it forever.
“There’s one in the kitchen drawer,” he said finally, rolling his eyes. I slid out from underneath him and shuffled to the kitchen. I rifled through the cluttered drawer until I found one in the back. “Liv,” he called impatiently.
I grabbed it, checked the expiration date and ran back, jumping onto the bed. “I’m sorry babe, where were we?”
Frown lines faded as he propped himself up on long, wiry arms. I touched his pecs, trailing my fingers down to a soft midsection while goosebumps sprang to attention across his skin.
